Currys' TikTok videos now deliver better ROI than paid advertising - here's the strategy

""We realized that the people that were winning were doing the other way around- focusing on entertainment and engagement first, and then linking it back to the brand," Dan Rubel, brand and marketing director at Currys tells The Drum. This realization led to a complete overhaul of the retailer's social media strategy, flipping priorities to make engagement the core focus."

"Employee-led social has become a major trend for brands on TikTok, but lately, Currys has become the standout example. The account which, posts skits and memes from Currys' in-store staff, has amassed 7m likes and has shy of 200,000 followers. Rubel explains that while the TikTok content taps into that wider social trend, for Currys, it is all about communicating its key point of difference - in-store experts."

"Most of its competitors are online retailers like Amazon, eBay and Argos, meaning Currys needs to land the message of: "seeing it, feeling it, trying it, and talking to a real-life expert." The videos might seem like they are just for laughs and to jump on viral moments, but behind that Currys is trying to build on that core message. For example, a skit that hopped on the bottle-kicking trend features a Currys' colleague desperately trying to tell all the specifications of a laptop."

Currys shifted its social media strategy from promotion-driven posts to entertainment and engagement as the primary objective. The retailer centered content around employee-led skits and memes filmed by in-store staff. The TikTok account amassed millions of likes and hundreds of thousands of followers by prioritizing relatability and viral trends. Currys uses humorous videos to convey its key differentiator: in-store experts who allow customers to see, feel, try products and consult real-life specialists. Competitors are largely online retailers, so the content aims to emphasize physical-store benefits. Specific trend-based skits are crafted to showcase colleague knowledge while remaining entertaining.

Read at The Drum